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When a business deadline looms and you have work to finish, few things are more frustrating than a computer that's suddenly become sluggish. Although occasional slowdowns in your PC's performance are normal, prolonged speed problems indicate a CPU spike -- one process is stuck, consuming excess CPU and keeping other programs from running properly. Windows Task Manager displays the tasks running on your computer and allows you to stop runaway programs. If the symptoms persist, malware might be the culprit; a thorough scan with Microsoft Security Essentials or another anti-malware product may reveal a virus monopolizing the CPU.

Task Manager

1. Press "Ctrl-Shift-Esc" or "Ctrl-Al00t-Delete" to bring up the Task Manager window.

2. Click the "Processes" tab to display a list of all processes currently active on your computer. Click the "CPU" column heading twice. This sorts all the processes in descending order of CPU use. Note that most processes show zero CPU use; this is normal, as these programs are idle.

3. Examine the top of the list. You may see a program that's using more than 50 percent of the CPU. If this is the "System Idle Process," your PC is not having a CPU spike, although you should perform a virus scan. Otherwise, click the name of the process to highlight it, then click the "End Process" button. The Task Manager displays a message, "Warning: Terminating a process can cause undesired results including loss of data and system stability… Are you sure you want to terminate the process?"

4. Click the "Yes" button. Close the Task Manager window.

Microsoft Security Essentials

1. Start Microsoft Security Essentials.

2. Select the "Full" radio button under "Scan options:." Click the "Scan now" button. Allow an hour or more for the software to scan your computer's hard drive; the time depends on your hard drive's capacity and the number of files on it. When the scan finishes, Security Essentials shows either a red "Clean PC" button or a monitor with a green check mark indicating the program found no problems.

3. Click the "Show details" link if Security Essentials has found malware. On rare occasions, the program interprets new, unfamiliar legitimate software as a virus. If you recognize a file as something you want to keep, click its check box to clear it from the list. The program will remove only checked items.

4. Click the red "Clean PC" button should it appear. The program takes a few minutes to remove malware files from your computer. Depending on the outcome, you may have to reboot your PC when the cleanup finishes.

Things Needed

About the Author

Chicago native J.T. Barett has a Bachelor of Science in physics from Northeastern Illinois University and has been writing since 1991. He has contributed to "Foresight Update," a nanotechnology newsletter from the Foresight Institute. He also contributed to the book, "Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance."